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Wednesday January 2, 2013 5:27 AM

CELLPHONEUSERS might’ve been surprised on Christmas Eve to receive a text-message Amber
Alert about a missing mother and toddler (who were found safe in Canton shortly after, by the way).
And the next day, some central Ohioans received a blizzard warning.

These free messages went out using the new Wireless Emergency Alerts system, run by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. The nation’s largest wireless carriers — AT&T, Verizon Wireless,
Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA — which reach 97 percent of U.S. users, have agreed to
participate.

At a time when people carry around their computers in their pockets and purses, this new,
more-narrowly targeted warning system is a smart idea that could save lives.

Along with Amber Alerts and local weather warnings, the system will issue presidential alerts
for issues involving national security, such as a terrorist attack. Users can opt out of alerts
except for those national-security updates.

Wisely, the system will issue alerts only for tornado, blizzard and flash-flood warnings, not
watches, and not for severe-thunderstorm warnings, which are common here during the warmer months.
If the alarm is raised too many times, users are likely to opt out or begin to ignore it.

• COLUMBUSOFTEN gets named as a top city for its great cuisine and arts scene, stable
employers, universities and thriving downtown. So it’s well past time that Columbus’ little
siblings get recognition for their accomplishments.

Grove City is still reveling in
Ohio Magazine naming it as the “Best Hometown” of central Ohio for 2012-2013. Stories
about the suburb will be featured in the magazine’s January and July issues.

And now Westerville is being honored as the fifth friendliest town in the nation;
Forbes and the social-networking site Nextdoor.com reviewed 500 towns, including
first-place winner Sammamish, Wash. (At http://onforb.es/T7hLJP)

All the winners have relatively little crime, high home-ownership rates, a well-educated
population and lots of community activities. Westerville’s residents say it’s a great place to call
home.

Forbes quotes Daniela Rennie, who moved to Westerville a decade ago: “This town is a gem.
Any time you need anything you can ask most of the neighbors. It’s like that ‘Cheers’ show where ‘
everybody knows your name.’ ”

Well... maybe not exactly like “Cheers.” Westerville was home of the temperance movement.

• IT TURNS out that all work and no play really does make Jack a dull boy — and
probably a less socially adept one, as well.

A new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics confirms what most of us
intuitively know: Recess is good for kids. And not just for the ability to burn off extra energy
and get exercise, but also to help kids focus in the classroom and develop social skills, according
to the policy’s authors.

The group, a leading authority on children’s health, aims to remind school officials that
supervised but unstructured play time is vital to kids — so much so that it shouldn’t be taken away
as a punishment or replaced by more class time or formal physical education instruction.

The good news is that the great majority of U.S. elementary schools already give daily recess
breaks: about 79 percent in 2006, according to the most-recent data from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. That figure actually went up from 71 percent in 2000.

“We went through a period about 10 years ago where districts were trying to squeeze all the
instructional time out of a day that they could,” said Thomas Ash, director of governmental
relations for the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, in an interview with
The Dispatch. “But we’ve seen more focus on looking at the child holistically.”